Cloudflare Is Liable For Pirate Sites and Has No Safe Harbor, Publisher Says (torrentfreak.com)

After dragging Cloudflare to court and accusing the web services company of various types of copyright and trademark infringement, noting that several customers used Cloudflare's servers to distribute pirated content, adult publisher ALS Scan told the California District Court this week that the company should be held liable for copyright infringements committed by its customers. According to TorrentFreak, "The company requests a partial summary judgement, claiming that the CDN provider assists pirates and doesn't qualify for safe harbor protection." From the report: "The evidence is undisputed," ALS writes. "Cloudflare materially assists website operators in reproduction, distribution and display of copyrighted works, including infringing copies of ALS works. Cloudflare also masks information about pirate sites and their hosts." ALS anticipates that Cloudflare may argue that the company or its clients are protected by the DMCA's safe harbor provision, but contests this claim. The publisher notes that none of the customers registered the required paperwork at the U.S. Copyright Office. "Cloudflare may say that the Cloudflare Customer Sites are themselves service providers entitled to DMCA protections, however, none have qualified for safe harbors by submitting the required notices to the U.S. Copyright Office. Cloudflare may say that the Cloudflare Customer Sites are themselves service providers entitled to DMCA protections, however, none have qualified for safe harbors by submitting the required notices to the U.S. Copyright Office."

Cloudflare itself has no safe harbor protection either, they argue, because it operates differently than a service provider as defined in the DMCA. It's a "smart system" which also modifies content, instead of a "dumb pipe," they claim. In addition, the CDN provider is accused of failing to implement a reasonable policy that will terminate repeat offenders. "Cloudflare has no available safe harbors. Even if any safe harbors apply, Cloudflare has lost such safe harbors for failure to adopt and reasonably implement a policy including termination of repeat infringers," ALS writes. ALS now asks the court to issue a partial summary judgment ruling that Cloudflare is liable for contributory copyright infringement. If this motion is granted, a trial would only be needed to establish the damages amount.

Comments

Re:"Publisher Says" ... nuff said

[Jane Q. Public]

1) Please explain precisely what part of the memo is biased. It lists facts of record, which by definition cannot be biased.

2) What information does it lack, that it could have included? The actual documents it was based on are still classified, and of the Republicans only Trey Gowdy was allowed to see them.

3) What context was omitted? This is basically a repeat of #2. They couldn't include stuff that is still classified. In part because it's still part of an ongoing investigation.

4) How is it poorly researched? Please explain.

5) Interesting thing to say, given that it has no conclusions. It is simply a list of facts. It does not make conclusions from them.

6) In order to know they were cherry-picked, you'd have to know what's in the rest of the classified documents. What is your security clearance?

7) Remember, this memo did not originate with Trump. It was brought to him by members of Congress.

8) I'll offer a conclusion: I think you're talking out your ass.